


in everything, a soul

by xerampelinae



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Sentient Jaegers, abandoned and rediscovered works, loudly adds background characters of color
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-15
Updated: 2017-12-15
Packaged: 2019-02-15 01:10:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13020096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xerampelinae/pseuds/xerampelinae
Summary: Mako Mori, engineer of a diminished project, walks Oblivion Bay and listens.“This one,” she says to her father later.





	in everything, a soul

Mako is the one who chooses, ultimately. It is not yet the beginning of the end, but it is close; they can taste the brontide of change and the quicksilver fear of desperation. 

There are others who might think themselves the turning point--and some are, for everything but the Jaeger program--but are partners only of stasis. Mako Mori, engineer of a diminished project, walks Oblivion Bay and listens.

“This one,” she says to her father later. She has studied schematics and condition reports with the same methodical care as her team, but this decision comes independent of that.

“Why?” asks Pentecost, looking at the same reports she has been considering. “It has an extensive record of repairs. It may be a recurring issue.”

Expensive, he doesn't say, but they both understand. 

“It has its own soul,” Mako says. “It-- _they_ \--still want to fight.”

Across the Pacific rim jaegers and their rangers are falling. Alone, an almost-forgotten relic rises from its grave.

-

The repair techs are a cobbled-together team from this jaeger or that, reassigned as the ranks diminish and those that remain are worn down by increasingly frequent Kaiju events.

Li, one of the more senior members of the crew, looks at their Jaeger with an unexpected, open grief.

“We never saw her, after--they didn't let us see, clean her up. We took care of her for years, and I can hardly recognize.”

Several techs skitter out of the helm, eyes wild with fear and making noise about the Jaeger breathing and watching them move through it. Li gives the gaping chasm of the conn pod a heartbreaking smile and makes his way in. He doesn’t emerge until the dinner hour, where he's quieter than usual. 

“It’s like--ghost drifting,” Li says when Mako asks. “A haunting. Like those boys are still tangled up in her. I apologized for not taking care of her, that after fighting so hard and being cut open by strangers, that she was just abandoned.”

Mako cocks her head. “Cut her...open?”

“Ms. Mori,” Li says, “I was part of her J-tech crew from the first drop. It’s been years since I walked her head and heart but I can see where they've carved out and replaced things. I don't know what. I don't understand. 

“But it hurt her. She's still hurting.”

**Author's Note:**

> Rediscovered the handwritten draft of this today because of work bullshit. I am no longer entirely sure where I originally intended to go with this but my notes suggest  
> 1) a ghost drift continuing after death   
> 2) a Jaeger cyborg  
> 3) Mako and the Shinto belief of a soul in everything (kami and people are not separate but inhabit the same world)  
> 4) science vs supernatural conflict  
> and honestly these are the sort of notes where you just pick 3 and roll with it. I just don't remember which 3 entirely. So. Enjoy.


End file.
